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Saturday, June 18, 2011

Nato raid in Tripoli kills five under the mission of 'humantarion ads'

At least five people have died in a Nato air strike that hit a house in the Libyan capital Tripoli, Libyan government officials say.

A three-storey house was badly damaged at the scene of the alleged air raid in the city's Souk al Juma residential district.
Correspondents were later shown five bodies at a Tripoli hospital.
Nato has not commented, but it has admitted mistakenly hitting civilian areas in previous bombing raids.
If proved to be a Nato strike, it will raise more questions about the alliance's mission in Libya, says the BBC's Jeremy Bowen in Tripoli.

At the scene

Jeremy BowenBBC Middle East editor

When journalists arrived at the site, rescue workers and local men were digging through the rubble, mostly with their bare hands, looking for survivors or bodies. The destroyed buildings were in Souk al Juma, a residential area, about a mile from a military airfield which has often been targeted by Nato.
Neighbours said the explosion happened at just after one in the morning. The building which was destroyed seemed to have been a family home. It looked to be the result of an air strike or missile attack.
Nato's mandate is to protect civilians. More questions now seem likely about what Nato is doing in Libya and what it is achieving - not least by Nato members who never agreed with the operation.
Afterwards, we were taken to Tripoli central hospital. The dead bodies of a husband and wife and a baby were in the mortuary, along with another dead man. Medical staff said they were all killed in the attack.
Another dead baby was brought in. Doctors were working on a man with a bad wound in his arm. Moussa Ibrahim, the government spokesman, said there were other casualties.

Our correspondent was taken by Libyan government officials to a Tripoli hospital where he was shown the bodies of a dead woman, a dead man and a dead baby.

The officials said they were members of a family killed in the alleged Nato air strike.
Our correspondent was also shown the body of another man and a dead baby.
He saw two of the bodies earlier at Souk al Juma - one being pulled from the rubble and another being placed in an ambulance.
Libyan officials say Sunday's attack, in one of the city's poorer neighbourhoods, happened shortly after midnight.
Scores of men were working alongside the emergency services, pulling at sections of rubble and looking for bodies.
Locals said an entire family had been killed, though our correspondent was unable to immediately verify this claim.'Seed of hatred' The level of damage, he adds, looked like the aftermath of an air strike, with concrete floors blown out on to the street.
The site is about one mile from a military airfield which has been frequently targeted by Nato.
Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said: "Nato is planting the seed of hatred in the hearts of Libyan people for years to come. They won't allow foreign armies to decide their future."
Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim told reporters at the site that this represented "intentional and deliberate targeting of civilian houses".
The incident occurred just over 24 hours after the country's prime minister accused Nato of specifically targeting civilians in its campaign.
What started as a peaceful uprising against Col Muammar Gaddafi's 41-year-rule four months ago has grown into a civil war.
The rebels now hold a third of the country in the east and pockets in the west, including Misrata, although Tripoli remains under government control.
Nato has flown more than 10,000 sorties since operations began, including almost 4,000 strike attacks against government targets across Libya.
On Saturday, Nato said one of its aircraft had mistakenly attacked rebel forces in eastern Libya during an air raid on Thursday.
Nato said it had hit a column of military vehicles near the oil town of Brega, and that the rebels had said there were injuries but no casualties.
based on BBC report